


One Brisk Winter Morning in Skyrim

by Ambitious_Rubbish



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22613200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ambitious_Rubbish/pseuds/Ambitious_Rubbish
Summary: Sidra does not like the cold.She really, really,reallydoesn’t like the cold.She does, however, enjoy complaining about it.A lot.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Ysolda
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	One Brisk Winter Morning in Skyrim

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by: https://skyrimkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/2397.html?thread=901981#cmt901981

There was no question that Sidra and Ysolda loved each other very much. Their relationship may have had a rocky start, but its foundation was solid, and time had shown that they cared incredibly deeply for each other. There were few things that Sidra Ardin would not do for the woman she loved.

Unfortunately, braving the harsh, unforgiving and near-constant cold of Skyrim was one of those things.

And yet, here she was. Ysolda was to blame for that. A trade caravan was heading to Windhelm, and she wanted to go with it. The redheaded merchant had begged and pleaded and cajoled her beloved into accompanying her on the lengthy trek with promises of “great riches” if she would only serve as a guard for the convoy. Successful adventurer that she was, Sidra hadn’t been terribly interested in those riches. She’d already accumulated more wealth in her travels than she could spend in a lifetime, and she was reasonably certain that Ysolda knew all of that. Which was why the other woman had sweetened the offer by hinting that the two of them would be spending plenty of time on the road in each other’s company.

Sidra suspected that she was being manipulated. More than suspected, really. She _knew_ she was being manipulated. And yet, she’d still fallen for the ploy far too readily, even after having been informed just how long the trip would take.

_“It’ll just be a few days,”_ Ysolda had said.

She had of course, failed to specify that they would be a few days of trudging through ice and snow, over hills and through treacherous mountain paths, all in the middle of a “brisk” Skyrim winter. She had failed to mention that the going would be tortuously slow as the heavily laden merchant caravan crawled its way towards one of Skyrim’s northernmost cities, foot by agonizing foot. And she had certainly failed to mention just how horrific things would be whenever they had to cease travel for the day and set up camp in the evenings.

There were few bastions of civilization along their intended route, so every night was spent in makeshift campsites, sheltering in hastily constructed lean-to’s that did very little to protect them from the bitter cold.

Most of the travelers were Nords who, unsurprisingly, took the whole hideous business in stride, seeming unfazed by the rigors of the journey. Even now, most of the caravan’s company were gathered around a rather sad looking cooking fire in the center of the campsite. But if the paltriness of their fire troubled them at all, no one showed it. There was laughing and excited chatter as plates and mugs were broken out for a hearty if simple breakfast.

Sidra emerged from her “tent,” looking so utterly miserable that Ysolda’s eyes widened in shock at the mere sight of her.

“The Mage’s Guild needs to hear about this,” the former Imperial Legionnaire began without preamble.

Lydia was traveling with them as well. She was currently perched on a log by the fire, looking relatively content as she tucked a fork into the mess of eggs and badly overcooked meat on her plate. “Hear about what?” she said, her words muffled by her chewing.

“We’ve made a new scientific discovery.”

Ysolda frowned, her brow furrowing with confusion. “Sidra, darling, what are you-”

“For probably hundreds of years, I’m guessing it’s been accepted by all the scholarly folk that the coldest it can get on the face of Tamriel is on the top of some Divines-forsaken mountain somewhere here in Skyrim. That one I had to climb to meet with the Greybeards comes to mind. But as cold as it got up there, I think I’ve just proven that a place that’s even colder can, and does, exist. The inside of my tent last night.”

A smirk immediately crossed Lydia’s features. This was far from the first time she’d borne witness to this manner of tirade, and the experience had always proven… illuminating. She sat up straighter, suddenly paying greater attention to her Thane than to her food.

Ysolda, on the other hand, had yet to hear one of Sidra’s extended diatribes on the cold and how much she despised it. She stared innocently at her paramour, occasionally blinking silently in bewilderment.

Sidra spread her arms in a gesture meant to encompass the entirety of the campsite behind her – the small fire, the pitiful shelters, the snow, the ice… the horses defecating everywhere. “I know this looks all picturesque and everything,” she said, her voice harsh and bitter as she spoke through grit teeth. “But I just want to show the two of you some of what I had to endure last night.”

And that was when Ysolda noticed that the Imperial had in her hand a pillow.

“Look at this ridiculous thing,” she groused, shaking it in front of her. “You know how this was made? Someone took a burlap sack and then walked around the campsite, filling it with either bits of dung or sharp stones.”

“Oh, it’s not that-” the redhead began.

Lydia immediately shushed her with a quick wave of her fork.

“And then, after they put the rocks in, they dunked the thing in a stream of icy water from a melting glacier. And there you go, Nord pillow. But you know, it gets better. Because there’s this-” She reached back into her tent, picking up a thin swatch of fabric which she then unfolded to its full dimensions. “This, right here, is someone’s very, very funny excuse for a ‘blanket.’ ” She gave it another shake to demonstrate that at its full width, it was barely wider than her shoulders, and that at its full length, it only reached down to about her shins. “Yeah, it’s a little small, but it could be worse, right? At least it’s warm and fluffy, and...” She held it up to the light. “Oh, right, it’s also completely _transparent._ ”

And now Ysolda was giggling. She knew she shouldn’t be. There was a part of her heart that ached, knowing how much her poor Sidra had suffered during the frigid night.

The rest of her, however, just found the whole thing so damned _funny._

Lydia, of course, didn’t even possess that much sympathy, and as was her wont, she made no effort to disguise the fact that she was very much enjoying her Thane’s immense discomfort.

“Honestly, it reminds me of this story we used to tell all the new recruits back when I was in the Legion: the legend of Praetorian Locratis. Locratis had been accused of betraying the Legion, of conspiring with enemies of the Empire. His guilt had been proven, and the only punishment appropriate for crimes of that nature was death. The Legate had given him a choice: he could be burned alive, or have one of his men pull his heart out through his ass.”

Lydia suddenly began coughing violently as a bite of overcooked sausage abruptly lodged in her throat.

“And I spent the whole night thinking ‘You know, I would rather have that.’ I would rather have had that instead of lying in that awful tent, waiting as my nether regions slowly turned to ice and fell off. I mean, you don’t understand – it was just _impossible_ to be warm.” She ran a hand down over herself, over her normally fit and trim physique which was now completely shapeless, buried underneath an uncountable number of layers of clothing. “I had this tunic on. I had this hat. I had this pair of breeches on. I had longjohns on underneath that. I put another pair of breeches on top, and then I put _another_ pair of longjohns on over the top of _that._ I had socks on. I put extra socks on over them. Then I put socks on my _hands._ And I was still slowly being murdered by cold. Divines, I even contemplated setting fire to my tent just so I could have a single, brief moment of warmth before Death’s cold embrace took me forever.”

“At least she’s not being dramatic,” Lydia muttered out of the corner of her mouth. She tossed a smug little wink over towards Ysolda, and the redheaded quickly slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from succumbing to a bout of the giggles.

“And what about the wind? Howling and shrieking like a wolf with its paw caught in a hunter’s trap. Only louder – so loud that I swore my ears were going to bleed. And yet, there was a point where even with the wind, all I could actually hear was the sound of my own teeth smashing themselves to bits as they chattered into each other. It was so cold that all I could do was lie there, curled in on myself, not just shaking, but _vibrating_ with the cold like a bowstring stretched too tight.” She moved awkwardly into a half-crouch, wrapping her arms around herself as she mimed curling up into a tiny ball. “I had a moment of genuine panic – real, honest-to-goodness panic where I was just lying there, and I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘Ok, everyone else is asleep, but I’m not, and I’m genuinely freezing to death.’ And at that point, I was just… what do I do? If I don’t do _something,_ I _will_ die here. But what? Do I make a break for it? Hope to find salvation in someone else’s tent?” She looked over at Lydia who’d recovered from her fit of coughing and was now very happily splitting her attention between Sidra’s raving and her half-full tankard of mead.

“I thought maybe I’d crawl into your tent. I mean, that’s how desperate I was – I was actually thinking about making a mad dash to your tent so I could spoon with you.”

Once again, Lydia was seized by a sudden and irresistible urge to cough. Mead splashed across her chin and she wiped it away, shooting an annoyed glance at Sidra as she did so.

Ysolda folded her arms across her chest and frowned. “You could’ve come and cuddled with me.”

“For one, I didn’t think I could even find your tent in the dark. It was pitch black out there. Snow was blowing everywhere. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I probably would’ve tripped over one of the ropes holding the tents down. And that’s the thing: they didn’t even bother to quarter the horses away from the rest of the camp, so look, the whole place is just littered with horse excrement. So I trip over a rope in the dark, and *Splut!* Face-first into excrement.”

“You’d be warm for a second, at least,” Lydia chimed in.

But Sidra continued as if she hadn’t heard a word. “Ysolda, love, you remember that time we got caught in that snowstorm just outside of Solitude? We took shelter in that old hunter’s cabin, and you convinced me to strip down to just my smallclothes. ‘Get under the blanket and we can huddle together for warmth,’ you said. And then you put your hands on my stomach, and all the blood in the upper half of my body froze solid.”

Ysolda’s cheeks turned as red as her hair. “I… I don’t remember that happening at all. I think you must be exaggerating.”

“Oh, really? So I’m guessing you also don’t remember me begging you to let go, and you saying that we’d both freeze if you did that. And then you brushed your toes against my leg and they were _so_ cold that I banged my knee against the bedpost trying to get away from you and couldn’t walk properly for the next two days. You don’t recall any of that?”

“It wasn’t _that_ long,” the other woman protested weakly. “You’d stopped limping after the first afternoon.”

“Uh huh. No thank you. The next time I’m at risk of dying of cold, I think I’d rather Lydia try and save me. She snores like a hibernating bear, but at least she’s _warm._ ”

“Hmph. Thank you,” Lydia snorted, flicking a sliver of fried potato vaguely in Sidra’s direction.

“Oh, _you_ feel like you’ve been insulted. What about me?” The redheaded Nord pouted. She hugged her arms closer to herself, rocking back and forth slowly on her feet. “My own wife doesn’t even want to sleep with me.”

Sidra rolled her eyes. “Ysolda. My love. My light. You know I adore you, but let’s be honest with ourselves, here. You drain warmth like a portal straight into the heart of Coldharbour. Also, I really do have to ask, what kind of madness possessed you when you were choosing these bedrolls?”

“You’re complaining about the bedrolls now? What’s wrong with them?”

“ ‘What’s wrong with them?!’ ” The Imperial shook her head in disbelief. “All right, this is a serious question – a deadly serious question, because I really want someone to answer it for me – but why are these things… well, you know those burial shrouds you Nords favor when entombing your dead? They’re like that. See, a Legion bedroll? It has _room_ in it. It’s not a cocoon of scratchy, itchy material that feels terrible against your skin and yet still does nothing to keep out the cold, meaning once you’re inside, you’re doomed to a terrifying, frozen death. Legion bedrolls were warm. I’d even go so far as to say they were comfortable. This, though? This is just… you wake up in the middle of the night and think ‘Well, that’s odd, someone’s performed some strange bondage act on me.’ I really don’t understand you Skyrim folk. I don’t understand _any_ of it. How long have I lived here, and I still don’t comprehend a single thing about how you people function. I mean, I was so cold, last night, so miserable, and I just can’t imagine how the rest of you weren’t as cold and miserable as I was. It was so bad, I was actually surprised that the entire camp just didn’t break out into a fit of agonized wailing. Just… just for the love of Mara, someone explain to me how you all put up with it! I hate this place! It’s disgusting and primitive and… and… argh!”

Lydia finally looked up from her mead, smiling faintly as she did so. “Are you done?”

“… I suppose.”

“Good. Because I’ve finished my breakfast, which means I no longer need to sit here and listen to you.” She set down her empty plate, took one last pull from her mug, and then stood up. “I think I’ll go wash up a bit.” Without another word, she lifted her arms up over her head and pulled off her tunic in one smooth motion.

She wore nothing underneath.

There was no denying that Lydia possessed some incredible curves – many of which were now shamelessly on display. But that wasn’t what had Sidra so stunned that her eyes were threatening to bulge out of their sockets. Not at all. She wasn’t aroused, she was horrified. So much so that she could only sputter in disbelief as Lydia continued undressing.

And she did so with a complete lack of regard for… well, for everything. The other travelers were beginning to stare. The wind was blowing, and flakes of finely powdered snow wafted through that wind. But Lydia didn’t care one whit as she moved her hands down to her waist and began undoing the buttons on her trousers. She shoved those down to her ankles, kicked her boots off along with the trousers, and that was that.

The woman was naked, ankle deep in freshly fallen snow. All attention was on her now, with many of the caravaners cheering, clapping and leering. It still didn’t faze her. Not even when a particularly icy gust of wind blew her hair into her face. She merely brushed it out of her eyes and grinned at her thoroughly befuddled Thane.

“Mara’s Mercy, woman, what are you doing?!” Sidra demanded when she finally found her voice once more.

“I thought I’d take a quick roll in the snow.”

**“WHY?!”**

The brunette shrugged as if the answer to that question were perfectly obvious. “Well, how else am I going to get clean?”

The Imperial was utterly dumbfounded. But then it got worse.

“Ysolda, care to join me?”

Sidra’s head turned so quickly she made herself dizzy. Surely Ysolda wouldn’t indulge in this kind of nonsense. She had married a sensible, intelligent woman, damn it, someone who would never-

… never…

She was stripping, too. “Sure. Sounds fun.”

A fully grown dragon could probably have flown right into the Imperial’s mouth, her jaw was open so wide. She threw her hands up in amazement, not to mention complete revulsion. And that was when she noticed that several of the other travelers had begun to shed their clothing as well.

That was the last straw.

“I… I’m going back to my tent,” she said, before letting out a half-growl, half-screech of total frustration. It was a noise that could curdle milk. “For Stendarr’s sake, does _everyone_ in this madhouse have this disease of the mind?!”


End file.
